Happy Birthday to Me!!

Today I am 35. As a testament to the stars without makeup bullshit I see all of the time, I have decided to reveal my own makeup-free face. A kind of permanent reminder if you will of my mid-life point.

Tomorrow I will have to post my Birthday Girl out on the town photos…they will not be quite so raw of course.

My youngest sister and my cousin are taking me out on the town in Tucson tonight. that is a first, and I feel totally blessed to have expanded my family circle to include three families now. The one I grew up with, the family I now share a street residence with (my birth mother), and my birth father who gives me three other siblings to get to know and cherish. He treated my existence not as a secret, but as a welcome thing, and he has never made me feel unwanted or unrecognized at all.

Being adopted was clearly one of the biggest challenges of my life. As my adoptive mother told me the other week…you were so different with personality–it was your nature I did not know how to wrangle, and no amount of nurturing seemed to change you. She claims I am so right-brained that it was much harder to rationalize and reason and get me to do super regimented things like say, clean. As a result we had a pretty volatile relationship growing up that has only recently started to feel like something that will work for both of us. For many years I just felt like the odd man out, the black sheep if you will.

When I met Babs, my birth mother, for the first time it was like a hallelujah light was shining down on both of us. Her temperament and personality are so like my own that it is hard for people to sometimes know we did not grow up together, no matter how alike we might appear to be. She is quiet, reserved, and super inside her own head, much like I am. We walk the same, we speak the same, we have the same interests in alternative and eastern medicine, and she is a warm and giving creature. When she was younger she used to write and draw as well…and though this apple landed far from the tree she fell from, I am still the same apple, and it is obvious nature plays a huger role in personality than you might deduce. It would be hard to prove unless you had my life as an example. If you grew up with people who looked like you, thought like you and spoke like you, you might think it was all conditioning. I speak as an example that is not true.

Mark, my birth father is much the same. We have the same ideas about entrepreneurship. In fact, when I was between the ages of 12-15 I had leaf raking, lawn mowing, snow shoveling, landscaping and babysitting to keep me well funded while all of my friends just got allowances. And yes, as an adult that entrepreneurial focus has not been lost. When my birth father left for Arizona he had $40 and a suit and built a very impressive empire over the past 30 some odd years. He started his own packaging company and still sits on the board of directors, the company still has his name in its title as well. He is the polar opposite of my mother and I do understand the draw there. He has major outward charisma, will talk to anyone (sound familiar), tells dirty jokes and is a get things done kind of guy. I feel like there are elements of those in my own personality as well, and had I gotten to know him a little earlier, things might have been a little different in terms of what I did with all of that inner drive and focus to drive my own car, not drive someone else’s car (or company, more accurately).

My siblings are similar in many ways to me as well, though I think my birth mother’s daughter (my sister) is more like her father than our mom. My brother is the same in many respects. My birth father’s kids are like me in that Matt, my oldest brother has started his own business, keeping with that entrepreneurial spirit. My sister Kate, his twin, tells me our father sends what each of us are doing to each other as a kind of encouragement, contest if you will. See what your brother is doing, seeing what your sister is doing, as a kind of barometer of his success. Pretty funny given I am kind of new to their family and game.

So today will be a lovely and new experience regardless. When I return back to Denver I am going to cash in on the drink offers you guys have been waving at me. How about try something novel and comment to me, guys. Just do it, I dare you.

Social Bookmarks

Hide Sites